


When The Time Is Right

by sabinelagrande



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Claiming, Dubious Consent, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-26
Updated: 2004-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius is restless and chasing a memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When The Time Is Right

It had been a long time.

It was midsummer. A new moon was high over Grimmauld Place, and Sirius was starting to get bored. He stole down the corridor, tiptoeing past the curtained picture of his mother. Sirius poked his head into the extra room, the room that was supposed to be Harry's, he thought bitterly. Something on the desk caught his eye. A quill. He had a thought, but he didn't know what it was.

It had been a long time. How long had it been? He didn't precisely recall how long he'd been in Azkaban- they'd told him, and he'd made a point not to remember. And now that he'd escaped, that he had something resembling normalcy for the first time in years, he was starting to hate it. He just couldn't shake off his restlessness. He wanted to go, wanted to do, wanted to be anywhere but in that hateful old house. He'd held it off for a while tonight, chased some rats with Buckbeak, tried to be happy, but it just wouldn't come. He was starting to wonder if the old Sirius was dead, if being happy was just an act he was putting on to please everyone.

And now that damned quill was reminding him of something, something important, and he just didn't know what.

It had been a long time. Winter was particularly harsh that year, Sirius remembered, and even with a fire the sixth year boys' dormitory was freezing at night. He remembered the beginning very clearly.

"Sirius," he heard in his dreams. He wondered why the dragon was calling him and why it insisted on using Remus's voice. "Sirius," the dragon said again, and pawed him on the shoulder. Strange, he thought dragons had claws… "Sirius," he heard again, and his eyes opened. Remus, in his pajamas, looking generally disheveled and nothing like a dragon, stood over him. Sirius made a questioning sort of noise.

"Too cold, can't sleep," muttered Remus. "Can I sleep with you?"

"Whatever you like," Sirius said, rolling out of the way. Yet he woke up the next morning with Remus in his arms.

The rest of it got muddled, got twisted in his mind. Too many happy thoughts sucked out of him too many times left too many gaps in his memory. The years until James's death ran together. All he could remember from that time were snatches- James's laugh, Lily's smile, Peter- he didn't forget Peter, since every memory of him was painful. But the memories of being with Remus, falling in love with Remus, kissing Remus were the memories he had fought most desperately to keep. He didn't remember reasons or specifics anymore. He desperately thought about that time, caught the tail end of a moment, and tried to hang on for dear life.

It was cold. Sirius hated cold; maybe that's why he could remember it. Remus was in his bed again. Sirius tried so hard not to lose his concentration. Things were becoming clearer.

He couldn't remember where in the world Remus had gotten the idea. It didn't seem like him. Maybe it wasn't. But the quill tickled his lips, and he tasted spun sugar. And now- and then, Remus was tracing it down his body, following the quill with his tongue, chasing the curves of his body down, down- and Sirius could feel Remus's mouth on him. He realized he was holding his breath and let it out slowly.

Sirius mustered his concentration. He couldn't lose this. He was kissing Remus now, working up his neck to his ear.

"I want you," Sirius told Remus, his voice just barely hitching. But Remus pushed back. Had he been begging? It didn't sound like the first time he had asked.

"Not tonight," Remus told him.

"When?" begged- he was definitely begging- Sirius. Remus didn't respond. Sirius held him by the shoulders. He could remember feeling hurt, desperate, but above all afraid that Remus just didn't want him. "When, Remus?"

"I'm not ready, Sirius," Remus told him. And Sirius wanted to kiss him and hold him and tell him that it was all right, that he could wait forever. But the desperate part of him was too strong.

"Promise me," Sirius half-demanded. Oh god, please, please, please say yes, he remembered thinking. I love you Remus-

Remus lifted Sirius's hand and held it over his own heart. "This is yours. And when the time is right," Remus paused, "all of me is yours."

There. He had it. The memory faded, but he _had_ it, something real, something to cling to. He knew what he should do, and he wasn't going to do it. The restlessness, the need to do, if for no other reason than to know that he was still alive, took full control of him now.

He crept down the hallway and opened a bedroom door. A thin beam of light fell on Remus's sleeping form. He stepped in, spelled the door shut, and quickly cast silencing charms over the room. Remus didn't stir. Sirius struggled for the correct incantation and pointed his wand at Remus. He breathed a sigh of relief when thin cords bound Remus's wrists and ankles to the bedposts.

Remus started awake, panting. "What the bloody hell?" he asked, voice thick with sleep and fear.

Sirius was on him in an instant, spelling away their clothes, almost feral. He grabbed at the skin over Remus's heart. "This is mine," he demanded, then kissed Remus as hard as he could. "And this is mine… and this… and this… and this," he told him, his hands groping at Remus's body, his mouth pressing hard on anything it could reach.

"I thought you forgot," Remus said, his voice shaking slightly.

"I thought I did too," Sirius replied. "But I intend to collect now." Sirius heard his breath catch.

"Don't do this, Sirius," he pleaded. "Not now. It's been too long. Some other time-"

"Look around you, Remus," he cut him off, his voice half mad laughter. "A werewolf and a fugitive. We haven't got any other time. We haven't even got _this_ time. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to try and steal it."

Remus kept begging on until Sirius closed his mouth with his own. He had a thought and broke away. A flick of the wand, and Remus's water glass was filled with oil. He took the glass in one hand and started massaging it into Remus with the other. Remus had stopped trying to protest; it wouldn't have helped, because Sirius had stopped listening.

Sirius was ready. And he didn't stop himself. He pushed himself into Remus slowly. Then the thinking, restless, desperate part of him shut off. And he just moved, just felt. He thrust in and out of Remus again and again, trying to replace all his gaps with Remus, with the feel of Remus, with the scent of Remus.

Then he felt Remus relaxing, moving with him. And Sirius tried to make up for too many long years' wait, for too much trying to be himself without ever being himself, for every memory that he had lost. Somewhere from out of all of it, Sirius heard Remus cry out, felt him arch his back and then collapse. And this, this was something that no dementor could ever take away from him, not if he spent a thousand lifetimes in Azkaban. Sirius came, shaking and crying, and Remus cried with him.

Sirius released the bonds, and they just lay there, Remus holding Sirius, until long after the moon set and the sun rose. And Sirius felt like Sirius again, like he was young and no one could stop him. Then Remus kissed him, and he knew that he was Sirius again, that he loved Remus and that Remus loved him and that no one could even touch him.

It had been a long time, but now it was done.


End file.
